Q&A with Martha Carr discussion

Have you kept a secret for awhile? How has it affected your life? Are you like the character Mary Elizabeth and would love to set yourself free?

I've only kept very few secrets of my own, I'm great at keeping other's secrets but not so good for my own. If something's bothering me I need to share it with my closest friends (either my husband, my sister, my mother, or 2 of my cousins that I love to pieces) and take it off my chest. If it's shameful or I simply don't want to share it, I bury it in the back of my mind. I'm very good compartmentalizing and the memory will rarely surface.

Georgina - that's interesting - was talking with this very idea of compartmentalizing recently and I was never able to do it successfully because the secret kept bubbling up and I noticed that the fears surrounding it influenced decisions I made. Talking about them was extremely painful but the peace on the other side has been worth it. Plus, I really got to know who I am, what I want much better.

You're right but that, of course, depends on the kind of secret. In my case, a few years ago I went through a very difficult time in my life and merely surviving it and coming on the other side taught me a lot about myself and has made me a more complete, happy person. I keep my secret because it shames me, therefore, keeping it is more like a basic instinct, but it doesn't cause me pain in any way (other than my pride, that is ;-))

I've had the immense blessing of making amends to people and I was so surprised at how freeing the smaller amends were over things that occasionally bugged me when I thought about them (not often). I wanted the promise of being able to go anywhere in the world and being able to greet anyone knowing I had done my best to clean up my side of the street. It was more powerful than I am able to put into words and changed everything for me. Wired was probably the long-ago start of that process when I found it difficult to talk about anything remotely personal and instead tried to get others to talk about themselves so they wouldn't notice how little I said. I wanted to look at the consequences of that behavior - set in a thriller!